US think tank launches Carnegie India

Washington, Jan 13 (IANS) The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a leading US think tank, has announced the launch of its sixth international centre to produce high-quality public policy research about critical national, regional, and global issues. Based in New Delhi, Carnegie India will open in April 2016 to join Carnegie’s centres in Beijing, Beirut, Brussels, Moscow and Washington.

Carnegie India will be staffed and led by local experts who will collaborate extensively with colleagues around the world, the think tank said.

The centre’s research and programmatic focus will include the political economy of reform in India, foreign and security policy, and the role of innovation and technology in India’s internal transformation and international relations, it said.

It will build on decades of scholarship on India and South Asia across Carnegie’s programmes, while placing special emphasis on developing a cadre of young, up-and-coming Indian scholars.

C. Raja Mohan will serve as the founding director of Carnegie India. Mohan has been a non-resident senior associate at Carnegie since 2012, as well as a distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.

“I look forward to the center contributing to India’s rich intellectual tradition through the in-depth, nonpartisan research of our scholars,” Mohan said. “I am confident that Carnegie India will add to Carnegie’s global reputation for quality, integrity, and independence.”

Shivnath Thukral, former managing editor of the business television news channel NDTV Profit, will serve as Carnegie India’s managing director.

The centre’s creation has been supported by Carnegie India’s Founders Committee, a group of Indian and international donors co-chaired by former cabinet secretary and Indian ambassador to the US, Naresh Chandra, and former US ambassador to India, Frank Wisner.

“On behalf of the entire Founders Committee, we want to congratulate Carnegie on the formal launch of Carnegie India,” said Chandra and Wisner.

“India-with its strategic partnership with the United States and its growing role in the Asia-Pacific and around the world-is a significant development on the international landscape and a natural area of focus for Carnegie.”

Carnegie President Williams J. Burns, said, “We are very proud to add Carnegie India to Carnegie’s network of international centres.”